by Sam Hutchins

We picked up Rte 431 south of Reno and headed towards Lake Tahoe. Usually by midday I had some clue as to where we were heading. This time it wasn’t about where we were going, it was about what we were leaving behind. Reno was full of bad vibes and we wanted nothing to do with it. The high point of our time there was our discovery of the National Bowling Stadium. Even that was better as idea than reality. Seeing the sign and considering the idea of such a place was amusing; seeing that it was just a giant tattered bowling alley was sad. None of us ever needed to set foot in that town again.

Living on the East Coast you don’t know mountains. The elevations in the West are wildly more dramatic. A series of sharp switchbacks carried us higher and higher. The truck seemed to strain as we climbed the sharp grades. Even though this was the only road from Reno to Tahoe it occurred to me that it must close in inclement weather. Sure enough, road signs confirmed this, as well as carrying warnings of rock slides and wildlife crossings. The West is still wild, in its own way.

Crossing through the pass and into California was like entering a different country. You leave behind a dusty, high plain desert and descend to a pristine blue lake. Reno is full of sad, gray gamblers and the ghosts of thousands of divorces. Tahoe is like Crested Butte or any number of small Colorado towns where everyone is young and active. Pickup trucks and dogs are mandatory and you are as likely to bump into a pal climbing a rock face as at the supermarket. I don’t think you could buy a used car without a ski or bike rack on it.

It became apparent that the truck was laboring pretty heavily. I could feel it in the steering wheel first. Then the burning smell started. It wasn’t overly troubling to me. Most likely we were just low on fluids. I hadn’t given a thought to checking the oil, power steering fluid, radiator levels or anything more than the gas tank. To be fair, it was a new rental with very few miles on it when we started. Also, I had so many other things to worry about. Still, I had dropped the ball on this one. Normally it would only be a matter of hitting an auto supply store and topping things off. The fact that we were currently in heavy traffic on a steep downgrade with no turnoffs to be seen made it a bit more worrisome. I didn’t think the brakes were the source of the traces of smoke but if they were we were screwed.

I’m by nature a calm guy, and am at my best in moments of stress. Panic serves no one’s best interests. My M.O. in a situation like that is to keep quiet about it first and foremost. The situation was tense enough without the added burden of passengers freaking out. You hold on and do your best to keep the wheel steady. Think about all the different ways things could break. Look for an exit strategy. Feel the adrenaline rush and use it for the positive. One’s body gets so torqued up in situations like this that it’s like doing great drugs. Perverse as it sounds, I was actually enjoying the tension.

Darius, being the intensely creative type, spent much of the trip oblivious to his surroundings. He was similar to Kar Wai in this respect, though not as extreme. Darius would not notice you had stopped to resupply. You would get off the highway, find a gas station, fill the tank, go inside to pay and buy a sack of drinks and snacks and he would not register it. Only when you were buckling up and pulling out would he tell you to stop so he could run in for a bottle of water. Kar Wai would wait til you were a half hour down the road before realizing you had stopped. Unfortunately Darius chose this moment to engage with reality.

“Sam, something is burning.”

“Yes, Darius, I smell that.”

“What is causing it?”

“I think it’s just the oil. We’ll be fine.”

He was on the verge of panic, and the distraction wasn’t helping me.

“We should pull over. You must take this seriously. It could be dangerous.”

We were driving down a steep decline with rock wall on our right and cliffs plunging down to the lake on our left.

“Tell you what, pal, if you see a safe place to pull over that I don’t, feel free to point it out, alright?”

Then of course his feelings were hurt. So now in addition to a rapidly failing truck on a dangerous road I was dealing with a sullen and scared passenger. Stephane and I had grown close like brothers, but also learned to torture each other as siblings do. He proceeded to tweak me.

“Darius is right, you should pull over.”

Thank God for Kar Wai, who just sat there grinning and screwing around with the iPod. At least we had good music going. Norah’s character was to end her journey at the Pacific Ocean; we couldn’t get there soon enough.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

by Sam Hutchins

Reno seemed promising at first. We got an early jump and began making our way into town. It had a good approach. I cannot emphasize enough how important this is when scouting with a director. When watching a film, you will notice what is called an “establishing shot.” It is just that: the opening shot of a scene that establishes the location in which a scene is set. An establishing shot needs to impart exactly where you are, and do so quickly. You don’t want to confuse the audience or waste too much time on it, just inform the audience and move on. When I was scouting nightclub exteriors with Garry Marshall we ran up against the reality-film reality issue. The reality is that most nightclubs in Manhattan don’t look like much from the street, just an anonymous door with a velvet rope, doorman, and line of people waiting to get in. Garry kept rejecting these, eventually explaining to me that “If I shoot a nightclub exterior, I want a big bright sign outside that says ‘Nightclub tonight’ out front. You and I may know that’s not how real nightclubs work, but my audience is middle America and we need to tell them that it is a nightclub, not just show them a door. Give me a shot that imparts the information quickly and clearly.” Of course he was right.

The same goes for scouting with directors. When taking them to a location you need to take the correct approach. The way to go is the route that presents the location from the best possible angle. A good example is the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. It is an absolutely beautiful building. One of the largest Cathedrals in the world, construction began in 1892 and continues to this day. The Cathedral sits on Amsterdam Avenue between 111th and 113th Streets. 112th Street dead-ends at the front steps of the Cathedral. The most direct route is to drive uptown on Amsterdam, stop in front of the building, get out and have a look at it. A really good location manager, however, will take a longer route. The smart ones go around the block, turning onto Broadway then onto 112th Street. When you make the turn you are faced with a classic Upper West Side block, only the Cathedral looms over the far end. The further you get down the block the more it dominates your eyeline, and when you emerge onto Amsterdam it opens up beautifully in front of you. If you are about to make the turn onto 112th and the director is on the phone or otherwise distracted, pull over and wait until you have their full attention. Don’t waste the “reveal” as first impressions are critical for the director as well as for the audience.

Back to Reno, a city I had not set foot in before that moment. By happy accident, however, we stumbled onto a great approach to the city. We had crashed just outside town in Sparks, Nevada. Once we were coffeed up we began making our way into town. Driving on St. Lawrence Avenue, the establishing shot found us. A series of low buildings dominated the foreground; better yet they contained tattoo parlors, pawn shops, liquor stores and cheap restaurants. Eventually they gave way to some large casinos, looming over us in the background. Just perfect shots to present the city to our audience. The location establishes desperation, aspiration and longing. We pulled over and shot the deserted streets for a while.

The difficulty with working there didn’t become clear until we made our way into the heart of the city. Put simply, it was a ghost town. I assumed the streets were deserted where we first stopped due to the early hour, but humanity remained scarce as the day wore on. Worse, the casinos were often no longer casinos. More than once we walked into what appeared to be one only to find it either gutted and deserted or in some early stage of being converted to a residential building. Times have been tough for the gaming industry, but this was a little surprising. Many of the casinos here had gone belly-up.

The thing that Reno did offer in abundance was motels with great old signs. Every block seemed to have one. Clearly Reno had once been the low-budget honeymoon capital of the West. I thought the abundance of great signage would be enough to interest Kar Wai but like the empty casinos we had seen from afar, this too proved to be misleading. What we found was that the hotels themselves were all broken down and converted to either SRO’s or hot sheet operations. Many were simply boarded up and abandoned. After our third or fourth nervous conversation with a pimp, Kar Wai had seen enough. We popped into one of the few still-operating casinos in search of a little lunch.

Throughout our journey we had established a custom of testing our luck every time the opportunity presented itself. Kar Wai would tap my shoulder and silently hand me a hundred dollar bill, I would add one of my own, and then take the first available seat at a blackjack table. Throwing down the two bills, I would play one hand only and see what came of it. We had done this every time we entered a casino, which was maybe a dozen times now. This was the first time on our journey where it didn’t happen. Seeing the tables I turned with my hand out only to find Kar Wai wandering away staring into the distance. I didn’t know if it was something about Reno, or us all being tired, or just tired of each other. All I knew was that we had seen enough of Reno. Time to move on.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

by Sam Hutchins

One gets accustomed to working long hours when making a film. Your average shooting day is between 12-14 hours, although they can easily go as long as 18 hours or more. You have no control over it, everyone stays until the day’s work is done. That’s just the “shooting” day from the time the crew is called in until the camera is wrapped for the day. Working in locations you are there before and after the shooting crew so your day is commensurately longer. My longest “day” on set was 27.5 hours. I am no stranger to hard work, and I do not shy away from it.

There’s a pretty standard way that films are made, with the scouting/preproduction days being much less demanding to start out. Prepping a film is still difficult but compared to the actual shooting period it’s like having a “normal” job. The intensity steadily builds, with the pressure being greatest just before filming begins. Once you hit the first day of shooting it’s more a slog to get through it than anything else. After a film wraps things quickly deflate as you clean up all the messes you left behind and prepare to turn over the film to the postproduction team. Essentially an extended bell curve.

Not with Wong Kar Wai, however. We started out working extremely hard and never let up. Our scouting days often ran 15-16 hours and he did not believe in weekends. As hard as I have worked in the past, nothing compared to this. Filmmaking is an industrial art, combining creativity and commerce almost equally. The compensation can be very good, but no one does this exclusively for the money. If that’s your motivation you are better served working in finance. No, you have to really love film to do this sort of work.

When I took the job I was excited by the opportunity to work with Wong Kar Wai. He was and still is one of my cinematic heroes. The films he makes are truly amazing things. As universally acclaimed as the stuff is, that doesn’t necessarily mean he has much of a budget to work with. I knew it would be a low-paying gig going in. I cut my normal rate to do the film and did so happily. The bigger sacrifice I made was making a seven day deal. This is highly unusual for good reasons. Normally my pay is based on a five day work week, with overtime rates rising sharply after that. By agreeing to work as needed I gave up all my overtime, which can be a significant sum.

Overtime is put in place to keep Producers from exploiting the people making the film too egregiously. The normal process of making a movie almost demands that people are abused a little bit, the hope is to minimize the need for this. When I made the serious financial concessions that I had in order to work with Kar Wai, the tacit agreement was that efforts would be made not to take advantage of me. Like they say, an unwritten agreement is worth the paper it’s written on. Simply put, I was busting my ass.

From our initial meeting months back I had worked seven days a week, a bare minimum of twelve hours a day and usually longer. I never slept in the same bed twice. No idea where the next meal would come from, or where I would be in the next hour. Dozens of states, cars, airports. Thousands of miles. Tens of thousands of miles. Months since I’d had time to myself, most of that period spent packed in a truck with Stephane, Darius and Kar Wai. Every choice was a group decision, and my group included a legendarily mysterious Chinaman and a couple of Frenchmen who loved arguing just for the sake of disagreement. A weaker person would have snapped long ago. As it was I was perhaps too weary to explode. I was beat. We all were. Except for Kar Wai.

I have worked with some crazy people. The business attracts them. Many a time have I sneaked into a production office early on a Saturday to get some quiet time at a desk and found the place full of people doing the same. All of us have crashed under desks, in cars, in campers or on any random floor just to grab a few winks before getting back to work. I’ve seen writers not leave an office for a week straight, and I know one particular producer who hasn’t slept since 1982. Still, no one comes close to working as hard as Kar Wai does. After scouting all day he would spend the time we used for sleep to get some writing done. There is simply no quit in him. It was scary.

The sheer magnitude of the exhaustion hit me as I sat in a cheap motel outside Reno. I had just woken up and was making the usual preparations for the day. Check us out of the hotel; gas up the truck and clean it out a bit; look at the maps and try to outguess Kar Wai as to which direction he wanted to go; locate the nearest Starbucks and skim the local papers for any interesting happenings. Having done this I thought through the state of the job. It was gradually taking shape.

We knew Norah’s character was starting in NYC. I had a scout looking at cafes there, and I knew we might do something in Coney Island. From there we would either head to Cleveland or Detroit. We had scouted both cities and had a good idea of what we would shoot there. Then Memphis, Vegas, Ely, the California Dessert and likely ending on the Santa Monica Pier. Unless of course we found something else that interested us on the way. I had tentative verbal agreements with a dozen establishments across the country. Scouts were working in several cities. I was trying to organize all the information and keep everything together while also keeping our current scout headed in the right direction.

Kar Wai occasionally gave us pages he had written. Not a script per se, but short stories, poems, fragments. One was about an ultra-marathoner whom Norah would see running in various spots throughout her journey. I had initiated conversations with the New York Road Runners Club about shooting one of their races. Another was about her meeting a guy who pushed all of his possessions in a shopping cart and slept with her in the desert. One involved a drunken cop killing himself over love and another would feature Natalie Portman as a gambler. The more I thought about the vast amount of work yet to be done to make this film happen the more my head hurt. Eight in the morning on the outskirts of Reno, my day was just starting, and I passed out from exhaustion in the truck waiting for the others to join me. At that point even ten or fifteen minutes of sleep came as a sweet relief.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

by Sam Hutchins

We rolled on and on. Beautiful, desolate country. Hours of nothing but the landscape. It was hard to tell from the map, but I feared we might wind up driving pretty deep into the night before we found a place to crash. We were all getting rather hungry too, lunch having been mostly beef jerky. Just as the sun was setting we saw evidence of humanity beginning to appear. First a beat-up old trailer, then an ancient roadhouse. As we pulled up to the first place we had seen in several hours, Darius spoke up. “Are you sure this is the best place to eat?” he said.

I slowly scanned the vast, empty horizon before answering as evenly as possible. “I think this is going to be our best bet.”

Kar Wai smiled, but then again he always does and no one ever knows what it means.

We were at a spot called Middlegate station. Built as a stagecoach stop in the 1850’s, it later served as a stop on the Pony Express. It was the next stop after Major’s Station, actually. Hard to believe, but what had been a relatively long day of driving for us was once done on a galloping horse. Those riders must have been tough sons-of-bitches. At least they didn’t have to put up with the emotional tension that was slowly building in the truck.

The place was full. Modern cowboys crowded the bar, drinking, eating and watching a large television. A pair of blueberry pies sat cooling on a wire rack. I pointed them out to Kar Wai, but he wasn’t interested. Rightly so, I suppose. Although slightly more interesting than Major’s Station, Middlegate was too isolated. At least Major’s had the resources of nearby Ely to support us while filming there. It did beg the question of where the cowboys filling Middlegate came from. The next town was still another 50 miles to the west. It was like “Cheers” but for Unabomber-types.

We found a table in back and sat for another in a series of increasingly unpleasant meals. Stephane, for all his faults, was a good guy. He had been hired for what was basically a dream job. Working as a producer of documentaries and commercials in Paris, he had somehow caught Wong Kar Wai’s attention. For unknown reasons, Kar Wai had taken him on as inspiration and muse. Kar Wai made a point of referring to him as the “Creative Producer.” He served as a stand-in for our pictures, which is odd considering he is just over five feet tall. He helped Kar Wai with his English dialogue, which is odd, as he had a limited command of the language. The two mens’ sensibilities seemed to be almost directly opposite: Kar Wai’s zen calm compared to Stephane’s wacky anarchic energy. Perhaps this contrast was what had appealed to Kar Wai initially, but he seemed to be having second thoughts. He was treating Stephane terribly.

“We will all sit here. Except Stephane. Why don’t you eat in the car.”

A harmless enough joke it would seem, but everyone was competing for the master’s attentions so it was actually quite cruel in a quiet way. The hurt flashed across Stephane’s face as Kar Wai turned his attentions to Darius. Those two were getting quite close. Hurtful as that may have been to Stephane, it was ultimately more important for the film that the director and DP get along. Still, it could have been handled so much better. We ate quickly and in relative silence before getting back on the road.

Stephane took a shift behind the wheel, expressing his mortification and anger by testing the limits of the truck and his luck at avoiding police. Fine with me. He’s a good driver when he pays attention and it was a long way to Reno. Also it allowed me time to attend to my work. Piloting this scout was pretty much a full-time job to begin with, but I had a number of other responsibilities. I had found and hired good local scouts in Memphis, Detroit, Vegas and Los Angeles, and was supervising their work, and also had a small staff scouting and preparing to start filming back in New York. Cell service was still nonexistent, but I was able to lose myself in the hundreds of scouting photographs I had yet to review. I looked through them, deciding which were worthy of being shown to Kar Wai. It was tricky work sorting them out given his mercurial nature and unpredictable taste. Soon darkness enveloped us as we sped along, the glow of my laptop illuminating the interior of the truck.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

by Sam Hutchins

We couldn’t leave Ely fast enough the next morning. The place had a certain malevolence tucked just beneath the surface, and our presence there was enough to awaken it. Nothing that couldn’t be handled, but the time to deal with the hustlers, grifters and flakes was later. For now we were just passing through and taking some pictures. Definitely time for us to get on down that road.

As had happened in the past, circumstances dictated our route. We had thoroughly scouted southern Nevada, then covered the eastern part of the state right up to the Utah border. North and west were our only remaining options. A quick glance at the map indicated that our choice was to take Highway 50 out of Ely. A long stretch of it would get us into Reno. Although Ely seemed to fill our “dingy card room in a desolate, menacing town” quota, it behooved us to see what iterations of such were available between there and Reno, if not in Reno proper.

Rte. 50 rises sharply through the mountains west of town. We passed multiple rough gravel turnoffs that led to mining operations past and present. I’d had some fun spelunking abandoned mines outside of Phoenix before, but that was not meant for this trip. Now it was time to drive, and so I did. Over and through the first range and across another high desert plain. And another. And another.

Although the land was lovely, it was desolate. We lost cell service as soon as we left Ely and had not seen any sign of life since. No other cars passing, no telephone poles stretched along the roadside. No mailboxes or lonely houses isolated off in the distance. Even with our early start it was nearly lunchtime by the time we saw another person.

Rounding a bend we encountered the town of Eureka. Eureka, Nevada is a town of 300, which represents the last vestiges of another former booming mine town. It reminded me of nothing more that the ruins I had seen of the Anaszi people in southern Colorado. The town seemed like it was both part of the mountain and also being swallowed by it. Houses clutched precariously to the cliffs on either side of the road. It could just as easily have been abandoned as populated by the looks of it.

The only open business was a combination gas station/convenience store, the retail part of the operation occupying what appeared to be someone’s living room. After gassing up we had a brief chat with the proprietor. Turns out the stretch of road we had just traveled was the “busy” part of Rte. 50. West of Eureka it had been labeled, “The loneliest road in America.” My friends were a little dismayed to learn that lunch would consist of homemade beef jerky and Dr. Pepper. We ate as we drove.

It was out there, on the vast open road, that I truly began to fear the Chinese people. Kar Wai had already proved to be fairly inconsiderate of other people’s needs. That can easily be attributed to working as a film director, though. Regrettably it comes with the job. But somewhere on that lonely drive we wound up discussing politics, specifically the election that was taking place in France soon. At one point I used the word “communist” pejoratively and received a sharp reprimand from Kar Wai for doing so.

I was speechless. Here was a man whose family had been violently torn apart by the Communists. They had killed his brother and forced his mother to flee to Hong Kong with him. Yet when I spoke ill of the philosophy he was quick to point out that the good of the whole was more important than the needs of a few. My fears were later proved true by another even more frightening incident, proving the sincerity of his beliefs.

A few months after this particular day a group of us were back scouting in New York. It was an exceptionally warm summer night, and the end of a very long day. Work was seven days a week with these people, they never took a day off. Further, the days themselves were generally 14-15 hours in length. So there we were, marching down the smelly, sweaty back streets of the Meatpacking District when one of our producers, a woman named Alice, simply collapsed from exhaustion. She stumbled and went face down on the greasy sidewalk. Neither Kar Wai nor any of the rest of the Chinese missed a step. They kept right on going, leaving her there. Looking around in shock, I ran and caught Kar Wai by the arm.

“Alice has collapsed. We should take her to the hospital.”

He gave me a long, blank stare before replying.

“Put her in the van. She’ll be fine. Just tired.”

He turned on his heel and went right on scouting. I threw Alice over my shoulders and carried her back to our van where she could at least get some air conditioning and water. After making sure she was not critical, I had to turn and run back to catch up with the scout.

But that was later. This particular day in the mountains I was just figuring out how cold Kar Wai could be. Silence settled in over the truck as I tested its limits by driving as quickly as I could. I no longer wanted to be out in the desert at night with these guys.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

by Sam Hutchins

We got back to the Hotel Nevada just in time to wash up and have a nice dinner. The rooms were smallish, as could be expected of such an old hotel, and the furnishings looked like they came from your grandmother’s garage sale. Everything was mismatched and cheaply made. All I generally require is a slightly comfortable bed, and the bed was indeed slightly comfortable. I’m sure the rest of my traveling party was horrified, however.

The best part of the room was definitely the shower. Or, should I say, the plaque affixed to the wall just outside the shower. It read:

WARNING: This is an old hotel, with old pipes. They are somewhat unpredictable. The shower has a tendency to suddenly cut off the hot water and get extremely cold. This only happens briefly, and at random times. If it happens please just wait until the hot water comes back on and resume your shower. Do not call the front desk to complain, they cannot do anything about it. Also, please do not flush the toilet while showering, this only makes the problem worse.

What a lovely feature for a hotel to have. Even though I did not experience a blast of ice cold water while cleaning up, I was tense with the fear of it happening the entire time I was in. Once I dried off I could hear water flowing through the pipes to the neighboring rooms. I flushed the toilet repeatedly and listened closely but alas, I did not hear any screaming.

Cleaned up and ready for a night on the town, the four of us stepped out into the gathering darkness of Main Street. I must say, the Hotel did present itself to the street in a lovely way. The retro-looking signs lit up the area nicely and would surely look wonderful on screen. Once we stepped away from the doors, however, the rest of the town sat in relative darkness. A quick stroll around showed that nothing was open other than a few bars. We popped in and out of a half dozen of them, mostly deserted, and none serving food. Eventually we resigned ourselves to the fact that the only dinner to be had was back in the Hotel Nevada.

What a dinner it was that we ate. All the finest over-processed food that can be delivered in a box on a Sysco truck. I know we were in the middle of the high desert, but this was a particularly unpleasant experience. We ate what we could but that wasn’t much, and I’m not a remotely picky eater. Finer food can be had out of a microwave in a 7-11.

That, however, wasn’t even the worst thing about the experience. Our waitress asked us several times if we planned to go to either the Big 4 or the Green Lantern. It was clear that the others did not get the reference, but I knew that she was referring to the local whorehouses. Every time she mentioned it the others didn’t understand and I pretended not to hear. It was a little unsettling.

Far be it from me to judge anyone. I actually went to a brothel once when I was much younger. It was in Nashville, and I was in town for a week scouting. I had found everything I needed already and had a day to kill. Being the diligent location scout that I am, I spent my remaining time driving all over town getting my bearings. Were we to wind up filming there I wanted to be prepared. By late afternoon I felt comfortably conversant with the town’s layout and was preparing to head back to my hotel.

At that point I was driving north out of town on Highway 41. It was a pretty industrial stretch of road, and getting turned around was difficult as traffic had gotten a little heavy. As we crept along I saw a light just ahead and got ready to make the right turn and get oriented back towards downtown Nashville. Off on the side of the road was a low, nondescript brick building. It only had one small window, which had an illuminated red neon heart in it. While I waited I saw a pair of very attractive women dressed as though heading to a nightclub enter the building. I wasn’t sure what was happening there but clearly some sort of trouble was going on. Of course I had to check it out.

I made the turn and passed the lot, parking a short distance up the street. Whatever was happening inside, I was prepared to make a quick exit. Entering the front door I found myself facing a heavy steel door and a small window covered in plexiglass. A woman’s voice asked me how long I needed. I inquired about prices, and she recited a sliding scale ranging from 15 minutes to two hours. The fees were relatively inexpensive and I was on per diem so I sprung for the full two hours, still having no idea what that bought me other than time. The woman buzzed me in.

The room I stepped into was dark, and the sign on the wall indicated that I was in “Sally’s Hot Tub Club.” Go figure. I was presented with a lineup of women, some quite attractive, and told to choose. I did so, and a lovely young woman led me into a room. She directed me to a bench in the corner and told me to get comfortable. I did, and waited for her return. Apparently she was a little surprised when she saw me again.

“Honey, by get comfortable I meant you should get undressed.”

“Oh. Okay. I was confused because there is no water in the hot tub.”

I nodded to indicate the bone-dry tub in the corner. She laughed sweetly.

“We don’t actually go in the hot tub, you see…” she went on to explain just what happened there. Ah. Got it. So I did what people do in such situations. Once business was concluded I still had an hour and a half to kill, so we had a very pleasant talk.

I mention this to give some context. When faced with the opportunity, yes, I certainly obliged. It was random, semi-accidental and quite nice. However I could not imagine consciously seeking out such a situation. Somehow it felt even creepier where it was legal to do so. It wasn’t just our waitress who kept suggesting we visit one of the local establishments, but something that was suggested by everyone we met in Ely. An entire town full of pimps. Also, the women in Nashville were generally quite gorgeous. I had yet to see a woman in Ely who interested me, or even came close.

Finishing our meal, I retired to the blackjack tables. Darius, Stephane, and Kar Wai all made their excuses and went back to their rooms. I was certain one or more of them was going to sneak off to the brothels, so I took a seat with a view of the door. To my great surprise, none of them showed again that evening. Perhaps I had misjudged them, more likely they were just exhausted.

While I am far from what they consider a “whale,” I do know my way around a casino. Usually I spend my time at Caesars playing $50 hands of blackjack. The table limit at the Hotel Nevada was only $5, so playing there felt like I was betting Monopoly money. The game was played with a single deck and the dealer was a little clumsy, so even with my rudimentary counting skills I was soon beating the hell out of the house. In an attempt to even up the odds a little I started tossing back double vodkas. The Manager stopped by the table and apologetically informed me that they could only comp well vodka, but for a double Stoli I would have to pay full price, which was all of four dollars. I told him it was fine and to keep them coming.

After a while I simply got bored. I was up over two hundred dollars on five dollar hands, and couldn’t throw the drinks back fast enough to get even a little drunk. The whorehouses didn’t interest me and I had no interest in finding any drugs. Cowboys may dream about gaming tables, cold drinks and available women but it did nothing for me. All I wanted was to be back home, sleeping in my own bed, alone. I said my goodnights, cashed my chips, and retired to my cold lonely bed.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

by Sam Hutchins

Kar Wai had been reaching out to his network of contacts, asking for any ideas on smaller, down-at-the-heels casinos. I was in no position to discourage him, but in my experience getting tips from anyone other than a fellow location scout/manager is a waste of your time. There are so many factors that go into making a location work that you invariably wind up being sent someplace useless. Not to say you should not always keep an open an inquisitive mind, of course, but know going in not to expect much. This is all the more true for ideas you get from the producer and/or director’s acquaintances. It’s always the director’s best friend who insists you scout Lincoln Center when the script calls for an intimate jazz club. You are obligated to follow through, however, so it’s only after wasting half a scouting day that you can report that the location fee is $100,000 and the first availability is sometime in October of 2025.

In this spirit we lit out for the Nevada-Utah Border. Someone in Kar Wai’s circle had sworn that there was an amazing casino straddling the line between the two states. I was highly doubtful, but what the hell. Why not have a look? We already had our accommodations for the night arranged in the historic Hotel Nevada when we loaded up the truck and headed out.

I must admit that we traveled through some of the most beautiful land I have seen in this country. The trip was through the mountains, essentially moving from one high desert basin to another. Being at such an altitude, I started to feel like I was closer to God. Whether it was the clouds, the majestic stone, or just the thin oxygen-deprived air, it was a tangible feeling I could not shake. I wanted nothing more than to wander out alone in the scrub brush and have a chat with the Man upstairs. Maybe strip naked and confess my sins. Alas, the closest I came were the multiple stops we made to photograph the landscape.

I was also excited at the prospect of Kar Wai working in such wide open spaces. While his stories cover a very broad range, his aesthetic is rather narrowly defined. He shoots urban decay. His locations are old, cramped spaces in the rotting hearts of cities. His colors are electric and washed in neon. The closest I came to matching his standard look was in Brooklyn at midnight. Now we were in the middle of nowhere, nothing but nature as far as the eye could see. We were surrounded by primary tones. Everything here was some shade of tan. How would he film the landscape? What relationship will his characters have with their surroundings? The questions thrilled me.

At one point when planning the scout I researched filming in Monument Valley. What a coup it would be to bring Kar Wai to the scene of John Ford’s greatest work. After extensive digging I discovered that getting to the really good parts took extraordinary measures. You had to track down one of a small handful of Native American guides who knew the area and do a day’s hike just to get to where the good locations begin. As great a thing it would have been to make happen, this was not the crowd to take that walk. Now, however, it seemed like we might have found areas that were quite beautiful in their own right to shoot. Valley after valley opened before us, with massive herds of antelope charging across the plains to greet us. Truly a lovely spot on the earth.

It was easy to find the casino we were looking for. It sat far off in the distance, the first sign of humanity we had seen in hours. As advertised, it did sit on its own with nothing else as far as the eye could see. Unfortunately it was also criminally ugly. Such a wasted opportunity. Nothing but a series of connected pre-fab buildings and outlying trailers. Once inside, we found it even less appealing. Formica, suspended ceilings, and slot machines ruled the day. We shot a few pictures before taking our leave.

Back in the parking lot, Kar Wai had Stephane, Darius and I pose for a series of pictures. The whole thing was done so unexpectedly and casually that I was surprised to find later that they are some of my favorite pictures of myself. The sky got a little dark and cloudy as we drove back towards Ely and the Hotel Nevada, but broke nicely just as the sun set. At the start of the journey my French friends had insisted that the journey was just as important as the destination and it seems that they were right about that.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

by Sam Hutchins

The process always plays out differently no matter how long you do it. Each film is a living, breathing entity that has its own quirks and wrinkles. This is true of every show you are on, but even more so with a creatively chaotic fellow like Kar Wai guiding the enterprise. The more I got to know him, the less predictable he became. Places that seemed to fit perfectly into his aesthetic were summarily rejected while other times he surprised me with his interest. Not so with the Hotel Nevada. As as soon as we crossed the street to take a closer look at it I began thinking about where we would park the trucks. It was exactly what we were looking for.

Opening in 1929, things got off to a rocky start when the stock market crashed shortly thereafter. Prohibition was in effect as well and was not a friend to the entertainment or hospitality industries. Nonetheless, illegal booze and gambling were readily available from the first day the place was open. The Hotel Nevada was always shrewdly-run, pioneering the concept of offering free bus service to and from Salt Lake City. The booze and gambling, as well as the town’s multiple whorehouses, proved a effective lure to the residents of Utah, and the hotel has always done well for itself. Amazing considering it was only one of three casinos in a small town in the middle of nowhere. If working with Kar Wai was a search for the hidden histories and the tales of the louche life, we had found what we were looking for.

The hotel was wonderful about welcoming us with open arms. It’s that kind of place. Although the owner was not in town, the manager set us up with a housekeeper who “was perfect for you, because she loves movies.” Without wanting to sound mean or ungrateful, I’m about to be mean and ungrateful. Even though people take time out of their day to help us scout, their presence can so frequently be burdensome. All we really require is access to the rooms. Give us a set of keys and let us wander around. Instead you are often guided by the person most eager to spend time with you, the local film buff. Such was the case here. While trying to take pictures and get a sense of the hotel I braced myself for another boring lecture.

I will admit that the cleaning lady knew her stuff. When she met Kar Wai she point blanked him with, “Yeah, your stuff is good. No one around here cares, though. They just want to see action movies.” This definitely caught us off guard and was good for a chuckle. Unfortunately, the monologue was non-stop from there, going into great detail about every movie that had ever exposed a foot of film in the surrounding 200 miles. As we looked at basic rooms she kept building us up for the suites. Apparently they were, at her insistence, all movie themed. After the big lead-up, we were shown the first of them, the Ray Milland Suite. My hopes for something out of The Lost Weekend were dashed when I discovered that the only distinguishing characteristic of it was a still photo of Mr. Milland sitting on a bed stand. To think, I still had the Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Wayne Newton, Anne Rutherford, Mickey Rooney, Ken Maynard and Wallace Beery suites to tour.

Turning around to leave the room, I discovered I was alone with the Housekeeper. The rest of my crew had snuck out to explore on their own. Those bastards. I continued the tour for a few more of the suites, but upon discovering they were all essentially the same room with different photos, I begged off from seeing the rest. What was in reality only an hour or so of my life had felt like a year in purgatory. Returning to the lobby I discovered my companions chuckling at the slot machines.

“How is your girlfriend?” asked Kar Wai.

“Thanks for ditching me.”

“You seemed like you had plenty to talk about.”

“Ugh. What did you think of the place?”

“I like it. Book us rooms here tonight. We’ll explore the area, then come back and sleep here.”

And so it was.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.

by Sam Hutchins

Ely, Nevada Pop. 4,041

Ely, Nevada is a town of roughly 4,000 people in White Pine County, close to the geographic center of the state of Nevada. It exists largely due to the now-defunct Kennecot Copper Mine, once a major source of the metal in this country. Tourists visit for the abundant hunting and outdoor activities in Great Basin National Park, as well as the Railroad Museum. Ely has three casinos, dozens of bars, and two whorehouses. Its population was now temporarily increased by four.

Main Street laid out nicely, framed by the mountains as it was. There were a few architectural gems there amidst a lot of ugliness. Had it been preserved a little better it might have potential for us, but initially I didn’t see any attraction. More tragedy than victory in the buildings, as far as I was concerned. Some sort of civic boosterism had paid for a series of criminally awful murals depicting the town’s history. Generally it just felt a little sad. Part of Kar Wai’s genius is seeing beauty where others don’t, however, and he seemed to be a little captivated by this town.

The place that initially caught his attention was a dive bar called the Liberty Club. It was a pretty great little dive with a hundred years or so of history to it. We stumbled upon and into it right around lunchtime. The bar was manned by a grizzled old lady bartender who would have looked just as comfortable in any 8th Avenue joint in New York as she did at The Liberty. The sole customer was a cowboy sitting at the bar enjoying a beer.

By cowboy, I mean the real deal, an honest-to-God horse-riding, calf-roping Marlboro man-type cowhand from the Rio Grande. Men can have all sorts of issues dealing with other men at times, and this is a perfect example of such. I like to think I’m a pretty tough guy, I’ll admit. Been through all sorts of tussles and scrapes and always come out all right. Drop me on any street in any city and I’ll clock the action in front of and behind the scenes right away. I can score drugs in a dozen countries, throw and take a good punch, tell you which guys in a bar are strapped and instinctively know who can be pushed and who can’t. Put me in a room with a guy like this, however, and I’m flummoxed.

How do you define your masculinity when you’re dealing with a guy who really works the land? City tough isn’t the same as country tough in the end. Also, I pride myself on my ability to relate to almost anyone but was at a total loss due to the utter foreignness of his vocation. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea of what to converse about. Hey, how you like the new Ford pickup? Feels weird for me to be at a total loss like that. Doesn’t help that guys like that are usually reticent to begin with, either.

We took some pictures but didn’t get far with the social game. The bartender was drunk and a little crazy and the cowboy was quiet. Kar Wai was also curious about him and eager to get some local color from the fellow but failed even more spectacularly than I had. Taking a page from my playbook he offered to buy a round for the bar. The bartender had hers inside her practically before he finished speaking. I reluctantly put my whiskey back. The cowboy refused the offer. The whole scene felt a little awkward and weird so we soon took our leave. I could now see how Kar Wai was fascinated with this place. There were stories here that we needed to know so we could improve them and make them our own.

While there were very few restaurants there was no shortage of bars. We popped in and out of most of them that early afternoon. Outside of the Liberty they were all awful. Nothing you couldn’t find in a strip mall in Phoenix. That first whiskey had not treated me overly well given the previous night so I made an effort to avoid any more as we scouted. Though I didn’t see anyone obviously tweaking, the town seemed to give off a pretty strong meth vibe. All things considered, I was ready to get the hell out of Dodge, unheard stories notwithstanding. Kar Wai held firm however, so we went on exploring.

….

STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF THE SCOUTING LIFE.

Sam Hutchins has been working in film production for twenty years. He started as overnight security on the set of “Working Girl” while attending film school at NYU. Since 1995 he has been a location manager for some of the top names in the business. He’ll be blogging from a unique insider’s perspective on the filmmaking process, as well as speaking to his colleagues in the production community to share their experiences with you.